Obama: The triumph and the tragedy
By Max J. Castro
majcastro@gmail.com
Barack Obama’s administration has accomplished a great deal in a year and a half. It averted a cataclysmic financial meltdown that would have triggered another global Great Depression. It rescued the iconic American auto industry from oblivion. Through its $819 million stimulus package, the Obama administration prevented unemployment from reaching 12 or 13 percent instead of the 9.5 percent at which it now stands. It achieved the dream of (near) universal health care coverage that eluded Democratic administrations for decades. It passed the biggest reform of the financial system in seventy years.
This is the stuff of great presidencies. Such enviable achievements stand in stark contrast to the eight years of the disastrous tenure of George W. Bush. And yet, these enormous accomplishments have not been rewarded with the acclaim of the American people. Instead, there is a fair chance that Barack Obama’s might be a one-term presidency. The most recent polls show the president’s approval ratings hovering just above 40 percent, the lowest ever. Most pundits are predicting a big loss for Democratic candidates in November 2010. Possible GOP presidential candidates are circling like sharks. Even White House press secretary Robert Gibbs admitted last week that enough seats are in peril that the Democrats could lose control of the House of Representatives in the next Congress.
There are several reasons that the country has given the Obama administration so little credit. For one thing, enacting big reforms like that of the health care system involves ugly compromises and the benefits take a relatively long time to become tangible. For another, Obama inherited an economy on such a steep downward trajectory that, under the best of circumstances, getting back to where the economy was before the crisis was bound to take years. But Obama has not governed under the best of circumstances. If he had, he would have enacted a much bigger stimulus package — one capable to pump up demand and employments and thus speed up the recovery. Instead, he has been faced with constant Republican obstructionism.
Republicans in Congress, for ideological and political reasons, have acted in lockstep to successfully block virtually any Obama initiative that could help improve the economy. “No” has been the mantra of the Republican Party since Obama took office. By blocking Obama policies, particularly in regard to the economy, the Republicans have managed to make the government, and by extension the Obama administration, seem powerless in the face of the continuing economic crisis.
From the New Deal to the Reagan administration, government played a moderately redistributive role through progressive taxation, upholding the rights of unions, and creating a far from comprehensive safety net. The economy grew at a nice pace and the size of the middle class grew. Even the poor were not entirely left out of the equation. Contrary to the myths spread by the right, food stamps, Medicaid, welfare, and other programs, coupled with economic growth, reduced poverty. But, especially during the Reagan and George W. Bush administration, the role of government became to redistribute income and wealth upwards through tax cuts and subsidies to wealthy individuals and corporations and cuts in programs for the middle class and the poor.
Since Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party waged a fierce top-down class war. This has changed with the Obama administration, which, especially through health care reform, has gone a modest way toward reversing the regressive trend in place for a generation.
The result has been a fierce response by Republicans, a response totally disproportionate to the mildness of the reforms enacted by Obama. Emblematic of this response has been the rise of the Tea Party movement, which surveys show is made up overwhelmingly of white people with higher than average incomes and extreme right-wing ideology.
This is the backdrop to the elections of 2010 and 2012. The Republicans, especially the most reactionary parts of their base, are energized like liberals were in 2008. The Democrats mainly remain loyal to the Obama administration, although many are disappointed over Afghanistan, immigration reform, and the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy toward gays in the military. But in contemporary American politics, elections are decided by “independent” voters, those who don’t readily identify with either political party or a defined ideology. So what is really serious for Obama is the sharp drop in support of this sector of voters, who are liable to give their votes based more on such factors as personality or a general sense of how things are going in the country. For the electorate in general, and for independents in particular, no issue is more important to their sense of how things are going in the country than the state of the economy.
Right now, it is difficult to see that there could be such a big improvement in the economy by 2012 as to make an Obama reelection more than a 50-50 proposition. The best that Obama has going for him in 2012 may be that the electorate has even less confidence in Republicans’ handling of the economy than in his own. In addition, the field of possible Republican candidates for president in 2012 is weak.
These factors and others not yet known may save Obama. There is a lot of time between now and November 2012. But what is clear already is that, no matter how you look at it, Obama has his work cut out for him. The path to victory will be a difficult one. The outcome will be extremely important for the nation for the results will determine whether the Obama administration represents a transition in American politics and social policy or a brief pause on the way to an ever more unequal and dysfunctional society.
